How to install Duplicate apps on iPhone keeping the App Store version

Did you ever wish that you could install multiple instances of the same app? Similar to Parallel Space, Dual Apps or Slices without jailbreak. Today I will be showing you, how you can modify any iPhone app and run duplicates of the same app without jailbreak. This tutorial includes step by step instructions on the modification and installation of the app.

Disclaimer:

If you are looking for a tutorial which includes the hacking of in-app purchases and how to modify in-game coins and gold, you are not on the right page. This tutorial will only show you how to modify the apps so you can have duplicates of it. We will be using Cydia Impactor program to sideload the duplicate app or game on our iPhones. The limitation of this program is that you will need to re-install these apps every week.

Modify iPhone apps to install duplicates on same iPhone

Before I show you how to make duplicate iPhone apps, I want to shed some light on how iOS knows if the newly installed app is the same app which it has installed or a new one. Basically, each app has a unique identifier value stored inside it. iOS simply read that identifier value and checks if it has to overwrite another app or install it as a new one.

By now you must have figured out how we are going to trick iOS into thinking that the duplicate app is not the same app which it has already installed.

Things you will need:

Although this tutorial is a ‘No Jailbreak needed’ method, you will still need to have a couple of things before starting the modification process.

A computer with the latest version of iTunes installed on it. I know that you would have really liked it if you could make Duplicate iPhone apps without a computer, but unfortunately, that is not possible.

The IPA file of the iPhone app or game that you want to create a duplicate of. You can search the internet for IPA of any app and download it. or you can also drop a comment below and I will try my best to find the IPA file for you.

Other than that, you will need to download the latest version of Cydia Impactor from here and install it on your computer. Another program that you will need to install on your computer is called 7-Zip. It is a free utility which helps to extract different kinds of archives, including IPA files.

You should also have your iPhone and a lightning USB cable ready for the sideloading.

Modification of the IPA file

The process of making a duplicate iPhone app is pretty simple and straightforward. First of all, you will need to right-click on the IPA file and Select the ‘Open archive’ option from the 7-Zip menu.

Now you will find a couple of files and folders inside the app, depending on what app you are modifying. Double-click the Payload folder.

Next up, there should be a folder which is like this, ‘App Name.app’, Double-click this folder to open it.

Here you will find all the files and images that are used to make that particular iPhone App or Game. Here you will need to find a file called ‘info.plist’ and double-click it to open it. I use NotePad++ to edit text files and I recommend that you should also use the same.

Now press Ctrl+F and find the <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> tag inside the info.plist file. The thing that you will need to modify is the text, under this tag. Basically, this tag helps the iOS identify which app is being installed.

Simply change the text between <string> & </string> tags. It can be anything and don’t forget that you should not make any changes to this file.

Save the file and close the text editor. Now the 7-Zip program will ask if you want to update the changes to the archive or not. Click OK.

Close the 7-Zip window and now the IPA file should have been modified with a new identifier.

Now, All you have to do is to sideload it onto your iPhone. If you know how to do it, go ahead. Otherwise, I have written another tutorial on how to use Cydia Impactor and how you can fix some of the most common error messages of the same. That’s it for this quick tutorial. If you liked it and found it helpful, make sure to share it with others and also don’t forget to follow us on twitter for more updates.